The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1887-01-14
The superstitions Of soldiers.


regard to battles probably prevailed
to equal extent on both sides. We
may laugh at them now, but we
once accepted and pinned our faith in
them.
The first instance to come under
my observation was at Gaines's Mills.
was then serving with an Alabama
regiment, and on the morning of the
day on which we were making our COT
fee at the early camp fire heard a
sort of groan from comrade. and as
turned to look at him noticed shat
he was staring into his coffee pot with
something like terror, while his face
was deathly pale.
"What is it?'' l asked.
II shall bekilied to-day ,"he groaned
out.
Fudge! We don't know that even
single musket will be fired"
81 dreamed last night" he whisper.
ed, chat ! looked down upon q sheet
OF water whose surface was covered
with bubbles, and amidst them I saw
my own dead face. shall be shot be-
fore night"
ridiculed the idea and brought ur
others to assist me, but the only re-
ply to our railIery was sad shake OF
the head. He was q believer in
dreams, and lie certainly felt that his
last Gay had come. In place OF eat
ing his breakfast he scrubbed off a
letter to his mother and entrusted it
to a comrade. In a little time we got
the orders to march, and before noon
my regiment was thrown forward to
uncover portion of the federal line.
The first missile sent at US was a
solid shot from a field piece, and it
struck the young soldier in the chest
and cut him fairly in two without in
CURING another man. Not another
man was even wounded for the next
ten minutes.
The night before Burnside crossed
at Fredericksburg a second lieutenant
IN Virginia regiment received, with
hundreds of others, some mail from
the regimental bag. Icarried the pack
+ OF twenty or thirty letters over to the
officers quarters and handed it to
this lieutenant. The top letter was
Tor him, and on one end of the envel-
ope was red stain. 1t looked like
blood, but was probably Ink. He no
sooner saw it than he became greatly
affected, and said:
II shall be the first officer out OF
the regiment killed tomorrow"
heard q dozen officers ridiculing
him, but he became silent and serious
and finally walked away by himself.
We were down on the right, where
the first federal attack was made.
Our regiment was using long and
deep land furrow as rifle pit, and
the advancing line of blue had just
come within range, when bullet
struck the lieutenant in the head and
killed him instantly. 1t came from
the front and was probably from some
sharpshooter, but it was afterward
agreed that the officer who was killed
was perhaps the least exposed of any.
There was superstition in my regi-
ment that any one who went into bat
tie with q foot OF rabbit tied around
his neck was safe. This was all right,
and rabbits feet were at a high premi-
um for two or three weeks. My bri-
gade was then pushed ahead on re-
connoissance, bumped up against the
Yanks, and we not only got severely
thrashed, but we lost good many
men. Out OF the seventy men in my
company presume that thirty had
the talisman. 1t SO happened that the
three killed belonged to this .'lucky"
set, and next day rabbits feet took q
decided fall in price.
was for time brigadier's order
ly. His superstition was that he
would be safe from bullets as long as
he rode chestnut horse. In the first
battle into which followed him his
chestnut was shot, and, of course, l
"hustled" to bring him up another.
Mine was a coal black, and the only
one which / could get for him was a
roam. He didn't seem to notice the
difference until the action was over,
and then got terrible rating. In
the second battle he had chestnut,
and even before our line came under
lire bullet crippled the horse and
another hit my superstitious gen.
eral in the thigh and left him to limp
through life on short leg. /
personally knew other officers who felt
safe on roans, bays, blacks and even
whites, but they sooner or later dis
covered that they had pinned their
faith to rule which had exceptions.
lremember that just before Grant at.
tackled Lee in the Wilderness, and
while | WAS at brigade headquarters,
a hen, OF which there was a large flock
in the yard, scratched up steel but
ton. A sergeant of cavalry at once
dismounted and secured it, and when
l asked what use he could put it to he
replied:
II will drop it into the ear of my
colonePs horse just before the next
battle. and no harm will come to Ell
ther OF them''
But what fetch can there be in a
steel button?"
"Oh, it isn't so much in the button
as in the hen scratching it up before
my eyes,"
"But why not try it in your own
horses ear and take care of your
self"
"To be lucky it must be given to
somebody else.''
] laughed at him, and he got so mad
that we nearly came to blows. /
met him q week later, having a sabre
cat on his head, and asked him how
the fetch worked.
"Must have been growing hen
which scratched it up" he replied.
''The colonel aud twenty Of our men
were killed after saw you"
A Great Crime Punished.